What’s astonishing about her pronouncement is that she simply can’t be lying. Nobody would intentionally tell such an obvious whopper. It’s like saying, “Never in the history of Europe was a war fought on European soil.” The theory of the Big Lie sort of breaks down with statements like this. You can hear Hitler saying, “Yeah, but not that big!”

Donald Trump tells obvious lies, like the one about seeing thousands and thousands of Muslims dancing in New Jersey to celebrate the attack on 9/11. But an enthusiastic Trump supporter could come up with some sort of reason, however implausible, to explain the complete lack of evidence for the claim. The liberal media just ignored the celebrations. Even the Grand Wizard of the KKK wouldn’t try to defend Nikki Haley’s lie. He’d be too embarrassed. It just can’t be an intentional lie.

There was that scene in the film “Inglorious Basterds” when an American soldier who speaks fluent, unaccented German and is passing for a German soldier blows his cover by holding up three fingers when ordering three beers. A German would hold up a thumb and two fingers. The Germans immediately know he’s a fake. That’s the sort of cultural subtlety that can trip a spy up. Maybe Nikki Haley is a spy. But what country on the planet would have enough sophistication to train and send a spy to the U.S., but not know about the history of American slavery and racism and make sure the spy had it all down? No spy gets that far without doing the homework.

Maybe Nikki Haley is experiencing early onset dementia of some sort. Had her keys come up in the interview, maybe she wouldn’t have known what they were for. But aside from having a blank spot on, say, laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage, she doesn’t show any signs of dementia. She delivered the GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union address and was perfectly coherent. She even seemed to reference the damage that Donald Trump’s racist and misogynistic rhetoric is doing to the Republican Party. Could it really be that in her mind, Trump’s rhetoric could lead to the passing of unprecedented laws?

But how could anybody so abysmally ignorant of American history get elected Governor of South Carolina?

It seems impossible that an educated American, especially one educated in South Carolina, could be ignorant of Jim Crow laws. We’ve ruled out her intentionally telling such an enormous lie, being a spy, or having early onset dementia. There is only one explanation left, and it’s one that should appeal to a lot of the Republican base: